ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: EDU2014-1003
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Athens Institute for Education and Research
ATINER
ATINER's Conference Paper Series
EDU2014-1003
Peter Madzik
PhD Student
University of Zilina
Slovakia
Miroslav Hrnciar
Associated Professor
University of Zilina
Slovakia
Quality of Services with Respect to
their Unique Characteristics –
The Field of Education
ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: EDU2014-1003
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An Introduction to
ATINER's Conference Paper Series
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Dr. Gregory T. Papanikos
President
Athens Institute for Education and Research
This paper should be cited as follows:
Madzik, P. and Hrnciar M. (2014) "Quality of Services with Respect to
their Unique Characteristics – The Field of Education" Athens: ATINER'S
Conference Paper Series, No: SOC2014-0983.
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ISSN 2241-2891
03/07/2014
ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: EDU2014-1003
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Quality of Services with Respect to their Unique Characteristics
– The Field of Education
Peter Madzik
PhD. Student
University of Zilina
Slovakia
Miroslav Hrnciar
Associated Professor
University of Zilina
Slovakia
Abstract
Services have various unique characteristics compared to other types of
products. Any approach to quality control of services must respect and be
based on these unique characteristics. In addition to the often mentioned four
major characteristics of services – intangibility, variability, inseparability and
perishability, some authors also mention other unique characteristics -
“customer as input and co-producer of service“ among them. According to
available sources, the relation between four major characteristics of services
and problems of quality was proved, but research concerned with the
“customer as input and co-producer of service“ characteristic is rare. However,
in the case of university education, the characteristic “customer as input and
co-producer of service“ is of key importance. This article uses statistical
analysis of survey results in order to prove the validity and importance of this
unique characteristic for the field of university education.
Keywords: Quality, Services, Characteristics, Education.
Acknowledgment: This article was created within the research project VEGA
0888/11 Knowledge managemenet – Models and Applications.
Corresponding Author:
ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: EDU2014-1003
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Introduction
The orientation of advanced market economies towards education and its
quality has been considerable in recent years. It is obvious not only from
looking at the Bologna declaration and accompanying documents, but also at
the amount of finances that is being allocated to this field [1]. In order for these
resources to be spent effectively, it is necessary to know (and measure) those
factors that have the biggest influence on the resulting quality of a school's
product – education. From the viewpoint of economic classification of
activities, the process of education is counted among services.
The nature of services is specific compared to other types of products – they
are intangible, variable, inseparable and perishable. The ability to manage these
particular unique characteristics (in some sources referred to as, particularity“
of a service) has a provable impact on the resulting quality of a service [2].
Knowledge of factors that together form a particular unique characteristic
should be the first step to quality control also in the field of education.
“A quality is degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils
requirements“ [3]. This definition is broad and at the same time accurate
enough to be applied to many fields – including education. Inherent
characteristics are all features and attributes of education, e.g., structure of a
study programme, technical equipment, attitude of teaching staff, etc.. These
characteristics are subject to demands from various interested parties (students,
employers, countries, regions, university executives...). Customer satisfaction
is one of the most important indicators of quality. In the case of universities,
students or graduates and employers are the most important customers [4].
Surveys of students' or graduates' satisfaction are some of the most important
indicators of a university's efficiency. It is therefore necessary to pay attention
also to the factors that influence the value of satisfaction.
Problem Definition
Characteristics of services are defined in various ways by various authors.
According to Lovelock, the four most often mentioned characteristics of
services (intangibility, variability, perishability, inseparability) are not always
applicable to all services [5]. Many other authors mention further
characteristics of services.
Uram's research has proven that the four most often mentioned
characteristics of services (intangibility, variability, inseparability and
perishability) have a provable effect on the types of problems faced in services
[2]. However, in the field of education, the fifth characteristic is also crucial –
customer is an input and a co-producer of a service. It is therefore necessary to
verify whether the attitude of a customer (in our case a student) has a provable
effect on the overall quality of the provided service (in our case education).
This research makes it possible to confirm or refute the aforementioned claims
concerning the validity of this characteristic of services.
ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: EDU2014-1003
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Table 1. Major Characteristics of Services
GR
ON
RO
OS
, 2
007
FIT
ZS
IMM
ON
S, 2
00
6
LO
VE
LO
CK
, 2
00
1
KA
SP
ER
, 20
00
GL
YN
, 1
99
5
ZE
ITH
AM
L, 2
00
3
SC
HN
EID
ER
, 20
04
ED
VA
RD
SS
ON
, 2
00
0
FIS
K,
20
00
KO
TL
ER
, 20
07
TÉ
BO
UL
, 20
06
SA
MII
, 20
01
4 major
characte-ristics
of services
Intangibility
x
x x x x x x x
x
Variability x x x x x x x
x x x x
Inseparability x x
x x x x x x x x x
Perishability /
*unstorability x x* x* x x
x x x
x
customer is input and co-producer of
service x x x
x
service is a process (set of activities) x
x
x
Source: [2]
Growing unemployment rate among graduates of Slovak universities has
led to severe criticism of the quality of education offered by public and private
universities. However, various sociological research indicates changes in
behaviour, habits and life-style of today's generation of university students [6].
All the beforementioned pieces of information thus seem to lead to the
following question: “Is quality of education influenced by students
themselves?“ Many authors interested in theory of services claim that
„customer (in this case student) is an input to the process of providing a service
(in this case education)“ [7, 8, 9]. The result of a process of education is an
output – i.e., education. However, if the inputs are of a „low quality“, then this
fact should also bear on the quality of outputs. Further research of this factor is
based on the following problem definition:
“Is it possible to prove a relation between the maturity of a student's
personality and the quality of education?“
As a means of solving this problem, a survey was conducted among
graduate students of the Faculty of Management Science and Informatics,
based on an up-to-date database of graduate students of all study programmes
at the faculty.
Building Hypothesis
In order to solve the defined problem, it was necessary to divide it into its
components. The first component is the maturity of a student's personality. We
can measure how mature a student was at the beginning of her study (how well
defined were her life goals and desired achievements) and how her personality
evolved during the study under the influence of the faculty. The second
component is the quality of education – i.e., the extent to which a student
considers the acquired education a quality one. Since the solution of the
ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: EDU2014-1003
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problem was based on a survey, the hypothesis was built according to
recommendations for hypothesis-formulation in sociological-psychological
surveys [10]. According to several sources, a hypothesis should consist of two
variables (attributes), where one of them must be bivalent (A1) and the other
must show various values (A2) [11, 12]. Based on this, the following
hypothesis was formulated:
“Students who claimed an above-average contribution from the
faculty (A1) were more satisfied with the quality of education (A2).“
Methodology
Decomposition of Attributes
Two attributes are present in the aforementioned hypothesis. Values
necessary for statistical examination were assigned to these attributes in the
following manner.
Attribute “A1“ - Coefficient of Faculty's Contribution
In order to assess the contribution of the faculty to personality
development of students, it is necessary to know their “maturity“ not only at
the end of their study, but also at the beginning and during the study. To
decompose this attribute, the scenario method in combination with a tree
diagram and a flowchart diagram were used [13]. “Faculty's contribution
coefficient“ was introduced at the Faculty of Management Science and
Informatics. This coefficient consists of calculation of values obtained from the
following questions:
- Did the student have a clear idea about her profession when she
began her study?
o If yes, was she studying a programme that corresponded with
that idea?
o If no, did the faculty help her make clear that idea during her
study?
If no, was she able to make the idea clear after her
study?
- To what extent did she consider her study a positive contribution to her
personality development?
Since the questions are conditional, the user interface of the electronic
questionnaire was adjusted accordingly. The contribution of the faculty to
personality development of a particular student was calculated as the product
of answers to the above questions (by multiplying X1*X2*X3*X4).
Coefficients of particular answers were set using a structured interview with
the teaching staff – their values are present in the highlighted area of picture 1.
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If a graduate had a partial idea of her profession before the beginning of
her study, then value A (i.e., X1) is 0,83. If the programme she studied
corresponded to her idea, then value A1 (i.e., X2) is 1. If she considered the
extent of the contribution of the faculty as 67% (i.e., X4), then the product
gives as a value of 0,553, or a 55,3% contribution of the faculty. In this way,
contribution of the faculty was calculated for each graduate. Thereafter, the
average value was calculated from all those values and graduates were divided
into two groups:
a) Graduates who considered the contribution of the faculty to their
personality development below the average
b) Graduates who considered the contribution of the faculty to their
personality development above average
Using this classification, the aforementioned condition requiring one
bivalent variable is fulfiled.
Figure 1. Calculation of the Coefficient of Contribution to Personality Development
Attribute “A2“ - Satisfaction with Education
Attribute of satisfaction with education “A2“ and its division into
questions are based on methodology for customer satisfaction measuring – CSI
(Customer satisfaction index) [13]. Here it is necessary to know the essential
factors that influence satisfaction of customers (in this case students) and then
to formulate questions that investigate not only the satisfaction with these
factors, but also their importance. This attribute consisted of six factors and
respondents had to evaluate them according to their perceived importance and
satisfaction:
ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: EDU2014-1003
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- Structure of subjects of study programme
- Expertness of teaching staff
- Pedagogic abilities of teaching staff
- Study resources, technology, equipment
- Faculty atmosphere
- Support for student creativity
The acquired data enables us to calculate the index of satisfaction
according to the formula [13, 14]:
,
where
w – weight (importance) of part of
quality
s – satisfaction with part of quality
i – number of part of quality
Seven-level Likert scale with verbal interpretation was used for input of
values for importance and satisfaction. Thereafter, the values were converted
into per cent according to the following relation [15]:
1
100*)1(%
DVV N
,
where
VN is measured value on the scale,
D is the range of the scale (7 values)
Data Collection
The process of data collection took the form of an electronic questionnaire
presented through web interface to subjects from the database of graduates
from Faculty of Management Science and Informatics (FMSI). Invitations to
the survey were sent from an official e-mail account of one of the authors. Data
collection took place from 25 May to 10 July 2013.
Data Processing
Collected data was stored on a faculty server without third-party access,
which was clearly stated when approaching graduates (we surmise this
statement led to the relatively high return rate). The database of the results was
exported into SPSS Statistics environment where all necessary statistical
examination took place in order to test the hypothesis. First of all, we examined
the distribution of the data to see how well it corresponded with the Gaussian
(normal) distribution. After that, we carried out an F-test to compare the
difference in variance of two sets (the whole set was divided into two parts
according to attribute A1), and then a relevant type of Student's t-test was used
to test the hypothesis.
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Results
During the survey, 454 FMSI graduates were approached through e-mail
and 375 of them replied. The number of correctly filled out questionnaires was
243. Discarded questionnaires were either not 100% filled in, or the time spent
to fill in a particular questionnaire (mostly several tens of seconds) was too
short to prove that the graduate paid enough attention to it. The average value
for the coefficient of faculty contribution reached 66,8%. The overall index of
satisfaction with education reached 66,7%.
Test for Normality of Data
In order to set the right statistical method for testing the two formulated
hypotheses, it was necessary to verify the distribution of the sample data set.
Judging from the data itself, it seemed that Gaussian distribution could be
expected. In order to verify whether the data really shows Gaussian distribution
two tests were used – the Kolmogorov-Smirnov and the Shapiro-Wilk test. Of
course, only attribute A2 could have been tested, since only this attribute was
of the “numeric“ type. Attribute A1 was changed into “string“ in the following
manner: a) above-average contribution of the faculty to personality
development of the students; b) below-average contribution of the faculty to
personality development of the students. The results of statistical examination
can be seen in the folowing table and picture.
Table 2. Results of Test for Normality
A2 – CSI
Kolmogorov-
Smirnov
Critical value 0,025
Calculated value 0,075
Result
0,025 < 0,075 =
Data shows
NORMAL
distritution
Shapiro-Wilk
Critical value 0,023
Calculated value 0,981
Result
0,023 < 0,981 =
Data shows
NORMAL
distritution
ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: EDU2014-1003
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Figure 2. Results of Data Normality Tests
The attribute shows normal distribution. This fact leads next statistical
examination into the area of parametric methods. The most ofen used method
is Student's t-test which may be of two types: Two-Sample Assuming Equal
Variances and Two-Sample Assuming unequal Variances [12]. In order to
choose one of them, it is necessary to perform a variance analysis.
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)
In case of attribute A2, the sample dataset was divided into two
independent sets. “Contribution of the faculty to personality development of
the student“ (A1) was used as the class mark. This attribute was chosen with
regard to the research problem and to its presnece in the hypothesis. Thereafter,
attribute A2 was tested using the Two-Sample for Variances F-Test [12]. The
results can be seen in the following table:
Table 3. Results of ANOVA
A2 – CSI
F-test
Critical value 1,476
Calculated value 1,441
Results Variance of the two datasets is statistically
EQUAL
Further testing
requires: t-Test: Two-Sample Assuming Equal Variances
Hypothesis Test
Before the test we should examine whether the formulated hypotheses are
valid on the basic level. The hypothesis was:
“Students who indicated an above the average contribution of the faculty (A1)
were more satisfied with quality of education (A2).“
As can be seen from the following table, our results prove the hypothesis.
Student's t-test (two-sample assuming equal variances) was used to examine
whether the differences are statistically significant. The results are as follows:
ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: EDU2014-1003
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Table 4. Results of Hypothesis Test A1 – Coefficient
of contribution
of the faculty
A2 –
CSI
A2 – CSI
Above-average 69,8%
Student t-
test
Critical value 1,975
Below-average 59,0% Calculated
value 5,579
Result
Hypothesis is
PROVED
Statistical examination proved that students who perceived the
contribution of the faculty to their personality development as above-average
(compared to all students participating in the survey) were in general more
satisfied with the education. Thus the authors' assumption that the influence of
a university/faculty on a student's personality presents an important factor in
education was proved.
Discussion
The influence of a university/faculty on how students generally perceive
the quality of offered education is essential, as was shown by proving the
formulated hypothesis. A university should not only pay attention to the
structure of study programmes, the teaching staff and technical equipment, but
should also form its students' personalities. That can be achieved by way of a
higher participation of students in scientific and research activities of the
school or by providing them with more opportunities for conducting research
abroad.
Unique characteristics of services play an important part in quality control.
If processes in an organisation providing services (in our case a university) are
adjusted in a manner that respects these characteristics, then severe failures of
those services can be avoided. The failures are disproportions between the
expected and perceived quality of a service in its respective stages, as defined
by GAP analysis [16]. This article presents an approach to the quantification of
the characteristic “customer as input and co-producer of service“ using the
coefficient of the faculty's contribution which was introduced at the Faculty of
Management Science and Informatics. Management of unique characteristics
of services still has a lot to offer and the authors would like to believe that this
article will contribute to a broader professional discussion in this field.
Conclusion
Growing pressure on universities from governing institutions is often the
result of international agreements to carry out international strategies.
Universities have gradually started to recognize the potential of quality control
tools hitherto used exclusively in the business environment. Several approaches
ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: EDU2014-1003
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were adapted by educational institutions (for instance, ISO 9001 was the basis
for IWA2), but there still exists hidden potential of combining the
characteristics of education as a service with approaches of quality control.
The notion of students' personality development by the university is an
example of this potential. If a university spends more of its resources on this
area, it can have a provable effect on students' satisfaction with their study.
With respect to the importance of the part students (future graduates) play in
the system of education, this effort is not purposeless and can have a profound
effect on improving the quality of study and on creating a relationship with the
customers of a university – its students and graduates.
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